Create account

Tiny Bee -- Up, up, up and awaaay!

What do birds and bees have in common? Get your mind out of the gutter—I’m thinking of WINGS, of course!

So what happens when the set of wings is too small? That’s right: the poor creatures can’t fly.

And what happens when a developer turns this idea into a game? You guessed it: Tiny Wings for iOS.

Finally, what happens if this game isn’t available for Android? Easy: a clever developer creates an Android version.
As one might expect, Tiny Bee is really just a Tiny Wings clone. Read on and find out if it measures up to the original.

Features & Use

The app’s game concept is simple: the protagonist is a little bee with wings that are much too small for its body… so much so that it has to gain a lot of momentum in order to take off into the air. Use the hills to gain momentum (some are smaller, some are larger).

To spice things up, the bee is shadowed by a big rain cloud and it’s ‘Game over’ as soon as the cloud catches up with the bee. In order to stay well clear of the cloud be sure to monitor the bar at the side of the display—it lets you know how near or far the cloud is.

Collect various items – such as honey and pollen – along the way, but mind that you don’t push the bee down at an inopportune moment, i.e. when the bee is on the wrong side of the hill, because otherwise you will waste time struggling over the obstacle and your speed will decrease significantly.
Collect as many items as you can in order to reach the high scores. There are statistics to let you know how much pollen and honey you have collected thus far and how big of a distance you’ve covered.

The game also features tasks such as collecting 8 sweets and available pollen by the end of level 1. OpenFeint –and thus more achievements plus best-score lists – is also available. The achievements:

The soundtrack and sound effects (save the weird countdown at the beginning of every round) are also quite nice. They can be switched off if you are not partial to them, however.

Bottom line:Tiny Bee is a great little game for in-between activities, meetings, etc. That being said, it might suck you in for longer than you’d expect thanks to its achievements and tasks. It’s the same creed of game as Angry Birds.

Screen & Controls

Honestly, Tiny Bee’s controls could not be simpler. There isn’t even a visible controls element. Press on the touchscreen to get the bee to go down so that it can use the hill as a ramp. And that’s all she wrote!

The menu is set up very logically, too.

The game’s design is pretty, but it’s missing the wow-factor, despite the numerous animations. Tiny Wings is cuter and I don’t tire of it thanks to its dynamic hill animation design.

Speed & Stability

Tiny Bee performed very well on the LG Optimus Speed / 2x, but it lagged on the Acer Iconia Tab A500, so much so that I couldn’t play at all.
It didn’t crash on either device.

It should run well on HTC devices such as the Desire.

Price/Performance Ratio

Tiny Bee can be downloaded for 79 Euro Cent in the App Center or Android Market—a very fair price indeed. A free demo version is also available.

Screenshots

2 comments

Fair enough, Mohammed -- and I definitely know what you mean, which is why I'm quite excited about the Order & Chaos release. Still, I like lots of other types of games too, especially for train journeys or when I waiting at the doctor's or something along those lines...